Shipping and marine transport

How does Shipping and marine transport work, step by step?

1. 1

   Step 1: Establish the route, the volumes and the cargo specification

   The project defines where the stream is coming from, where it is going, how much moves per year and how continuously. That fixes the number and size of vessels, the storage needed at each end to buffer between continuous capture and discrete voyages, and the terminal throughput. The cargo specification - what the receiving terminal and the storage operator will accept - is agreed at the same time, because it dictates the conditioning at the export end just as a pipeline specification would.

2. 2

   Step 2: Design the conditioning and liquefaction at the export terminal

   Capture produces a stream that has to be conditioned and then liquefied for carriage. Drying and impurity removal apply exactly as they would for a pipeline, and liquefaction adds a refrigeration plant with its own energy demand, plot and utilities. The condition the cargo is carried in is a design decision made by the terminal designer with the shipowner, because it determines the tank design on the vessel and the storage design ashore. Everything else about the terminal follows from it.

3. 3

   Step 3: Build the export terminal - storage, jetty and loading

   The export terminal is a marine construction project: cryogenic storage tanks with their foundations and containment, a jetty or berth with mooring and fendering designed for the vessel, loading arms or hoses, vapour return and handling, and the control and safety systems that tie them together. Dredging and berth approach works are common. Marine consent, navigational assessment and port authority agreement all run alongside the construction programme and often set its start date.

4. 4

   Step 4: Procure the vessels

   Vessels for this cargo are purpose-built or purpose-converted with tanks suited to the carriage condition agreed at the design stage. They are long-lead assets with their own classification and flag requirements, and the shipowner, the terminal designers and the project have to agree the interface between ship and shore in detail well before either exists. Loading and unloading rates, connection arrangements, vapour handling and emergency release all form part of that interface.

5. 5

   Step 5: Build the receiving terminal

   At the other end the mirror facility is built - berth, unloading system, storage tanks and the equipment that takes the cargo from the storage condition to whatever the injection facilities require. Because the receiving terminal is usually the point where several sources come together, its storage is sized to buffer irregular arrivals against continuous injection. In practice this terminal is often the more complex of the two.

6. 6

   Step 6: Establish the marine operation

   A shipping route is an operation, not just an asset. Voyage scheduling, berth availability, weather windows, port and pilotage arrangements, bunkering, crewing and the emergency arrangements at both ports all have to be established and exercised. The terminals and the vessels rehearse loading and unloading before the route goes into service, because the safety case at a marine terminal handling this cargo depends on the procedures being proven rather than written.

7. 7

   Step 7: Commission the chain end to end

   Commissioning proves the whole route: conditioning and liquefaction, storage, loading, voyage, unloading, receiving storage and transfer onward to injection. Each terminal is commissioned in its own right first, then the first cargoes are treated as commissioning operations with the designers, operators and marine authorities involved. Cargo specification is measured at both ends and reconciled, because the accounting for what has been transported has to be as robust as the engineering.

8. 8

   Step 8: Operate with the ability to scale or to switch

   Once in service the route can grow by adding vessels or voyages rather than by building anything, and it can be redirected to another receiving terminal if circumstances require. That optionality is the reason shipping is chosen, and it is preserved deliberately - by keeping cargo specifications compatible between terminals where possible, and by sizing storage so that a change of destination does not stop the capture plant.